Saturday, March 22, 2008

Vroom! Leaders of the Pack!

Humanity is in some ways pretty primitive. We’re herd animals, social and imitative, who look to the leaders to take care of our problems. The fact we’re like that is one of the reasons propaganda works so well: if the herd feels that it is under attack, it will invariably look to the leader to solve its problems and protect it. That, unfortunately, is one of the most firmly established principles in psychology.

As far as I’m concerned, the herd – the mass of people – are half animal, half child. Primitive tribes (even if they’re called nations) are always like that.

Facts are stubborn things, and the fact that people are tribal, who look to leaders to solve their problems, is one of the reasons why completely open borders will not work for any country.

Right now masses of Mexicans are pouring over the southern border of the U.S. Although I’m sure the mass of them are fine people, however, if they continue to immigrate, the day will come when there is a tipping point. That’s when their leaders, or “intellectuals,” will tell them some parts of the U.S. were stolen from Mexico and should be taken back. The tribe, as always, will look to the leader to solve its problems.

The same thing applies to Muslims. Let too many in, and sooner or later their tribal leaders will try to apply sharia law to the U.S. Tribes, if they get big enough, cannot share the same land without fighting, and one trying to expel the others.

Some people are completely deluded about these facts, especially open-borders libertarians, most of whom, as far as I’m concerned, are leftists, and like all leftists, don’t merely misunderstand human nature, they don’t understand it at all. Apparently they think people will give up tribe and religion in exchange for SUVs and DVD players. Somehow, I doubt this.

There are those who claim if the U.S. stopped meddling in the world, the world would cease to hate us. Overwhelmingly, they’re right about that. They’re also right that if welfare ceased, there would be far fewer illegal immigrants, since so many immigrants move to go on welfare.

Still, we’d have to contend with envy, the bane of humanity. Such a wealthy and powerful country will always be the object of envy, and as such, some people will want to destroy it. Without meddling in the world, without welfare, but with open borders, there are still people who’d like to move here and conquer and destroy the country, and remake it in their image. That’s why open borders will never work.

Countries rarely fall from outside attacks. Almost always, they fall from inside ones.